The actor talks about wanting to take a big swing to match his dramatic prosthetics-enhanced look.
“I laughed immediately,” he admits toEntertainment Weeklyof witnessing the prosthetics and makeup in action.
“It’s insane.
Christopher Abbott in ‘Wolf Man’.Credit:Nicola Dove/Universal
His costar,Julia Garner, had the response Whannell and prosthetics designer Arjen Tuiten were probably going for.
“It was terrifying and gross and also super intriguing all at once,” she says.
I felt like I was discovering something new every day with that prosthetic.”
Charlotte (Julia Garner) and Blake (Christopher Abbott) in ‘Wolf Man’.Nicola Dove/Universal
At the very least, he needed the confidence that he could still emote under all that material.
He struggles in his marriage to high-powered journalist Charlotte (Garner).
However, they are immediately attacked by a ferocious creature that seems not fully animal, not fully human.
Christopher Abbott as Blake in ‘Wolf Man’.Universal Pictures
“I was researching certain diseases and kind of pressing them together,” Whannell explains.
“There were elements of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, leprosy.
I didn’t want to over-explain it in the movie.
“So I guess it’s not terrible.
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Charlotte’s eyes appear to glow blue, making her nearly unrecognizable.
Blake feels locked in a completely separate world and desperately tries to claw his way back to reality.
Hooker and Will Files worked on distorting Garner’s voice.
According to the director, he wrote dialogue for Garner.
Hooker and Files would then “twist the words around.”
“Think back toThe Exorcist,” Whannell says.
“What they did with [Linda Blair’s possessed Regan], running it backwards.
We would run some fill words backwards and twist them around other words.”
“A lot of that was done in-camera and very practically,” Abbott recalls of filming those scenes.
“We had rehearsal with that sequence with the camera movement and everything,” Garner adds.
“It was almost like a dance.”
“It makes you want to take a swing that much more,” he says.
“In a good way, I get to hide behind it.
So then there is less self-acting judgment.”
